The care of the elderly is a growing problem. Existing services are inadequate for the needs of an aging population. In order to suggest new services to deal with the care of the elderly, this report examined four areas: the demographic characteristics of our aging society, the nature of services in general, services provided to the elderly population, and the application of role theory to the caregiver/care recipient dyad. Role theory identified conflicts felt by both the caregiver and care recipient. These conflicts were explored in three sets of focus group interviews: women 65 years old and older, women familiar with the experience of primary caregiver, and women between the ages of 23 and 42 (the age range representative of the Baby Boom cohort). Information from these interviews was used to understand both current and future perceptions of the elderly and of the role of caregivers in this society and what services they perceive are necessary for the elderly to function independently in this society. / Master of Science

Thesis (MA (Political Science ))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The accession of the China to the World Trade Organization represents one of the most significant political-economic events since the close of the Cold War. China’s distinctive political and socio-economic history has made its process of accession unlike that of any other member-nation of the WTO. This study aims to answer the questions of how and to what extent has China complied with its WTO commitments that apply to the life insurance sector. In order to answer these questions, this study employs the qualitative method of evaluation of describing China’s post-accession behavior then comparing that behavior to the liberalization commitments contained in China’s accession protocol and its service schedule. Upon examination of the evidence, it appears that China has been partially compliant with the WTO-related commitments in the life insurance sector. China’s compliance with market access commitments in area of ownership structure exhibits a compromise between the interests of other WTO members. China’s liberalization of geographic restrictions shows that China’s interest in even development of its insurance market also figures into its decision to comply. China’s compliance with commitments regarding licensing, however, appears to show a maneuvering around obligations in order to protect the domestic life insurance industry. While rational functionalist approaches are more helpful in explaining China’s compliance behavior in regards to market access commitments, constructivist normative approaches are more in explaining China’s compliance behavior in regards to its general commitments. Compliance behavior with regard to transparency-related commitments in the life insurance sector reflects socialization or an adjustment to the WTO-norm of transparency. Compliance behavior in with regard to judicial review-related commitments in the life insurance sector reflects an adjustment to the WTO-norm in policy, but this norm is rarely observed in practice. In sum, China’s compliance behavior in regards to commitments in the life insurance sector has generally been compliant with few exceptions. However, all judgments on compliance are generally subject because they reflect the interests of the parties involved. The true test of China’s compliance will begin after full accession in 2007, when WTO members are allowed to files cases against China in the WTO dispute resolution panel.

As transformações no capitalismo mundial nos últimos 30 anos geraram condições significativas para o crescimento de atividades de serviços, principalmente aquelas voltadas às empresas e em especial as chamadas intensivas em conhecimento. O objetivo geral do trabalho é contribuir para o estabelecimento do debate sobre knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) ou serviços empresariais intensivos em conhecimento (SEIC) no Brasil. Trata-se de enquadrar a discussão da literatura internacional em uma economia periférica e avaliar sua pertinência. A hipótese é que este grupo de atividades se torna necessário para o desenvolvimento dos países nesta nova era do capitalismo, especialmente por sua atuação na difusão de conhecimento e sua participação positiva em processos de inovação. Neste sentido, os propósitos do texto são: 1) fazer uma revisão da literatura sobre KIBS; 2) definir os KIBS no Brasil em comparação com os outros setores da economia, mostrando sua participação significativa em termos de geração de receita, sua dinâmica de crescimento acima da média nos últimos anos e sua capacidade de empregar mão-de-obra de mais alta qualificação; 3) investigar em que medida este grupo é importante na difusão de conhecimento e em processos de inovação; 4) discutir a concentração destas atividades em áreas metropolitanas. Pelo fato de atuarem como difusores de conhecimento e pelo seu enredamento vasto na cadeia produtiva, os KIBS podem representar uma tendência analítica promissora, especialmente em um momento em que atores públicos têm pensado políticas de desenvolvimento de escopo transversal, nas quais a inovação é elemento central. / The changes in capitalism in the last thirty years created conditions to service industries growth, especially those ones related to knowledge-intensive activities. The main objective of this master thesis is to contribute to build a knowledge-intensive business services debate in Brazil. It means that this thesis tries to bring an important debate from the developed countries academia to a developing country in order to analyze if it could be applied in other context. The hypothesis is that KIBS are necessary to increase economic development in Brazil in the new era of capitalism, also known as knowledge-based economy or informational society. The relevance of these activities is due to their role as sources, carriers and diffusers of knowledge that can generate externalities to innovation processes. The aims of this text are: 1) make a literature review of KIBS debate; 2) define KIBS in Brazil comparing to the rest of service sector, showing how important they are in terms of growth in the last years, high value added generation, and qualified labor force employment; 3) investigate how these industries are important to knowledge diffusion and to innovation processes; 4) discuss the reasons why KIBS are agglomerated in metropolitan regions. Once KIBS are known as sources, carriers and diffusers of knowledge and as they are connected to many of others activities, I assume that they can be an interesting and promising approach. This becomes even more important nowadays, in a context in which innovation takes place as a central issue of the development policies debate.

As transformações no capitalismo mundial nos últimos 30 anos geraram condições significativas para o crescimento de atividades de serviços, principalmente aquelas voltadas às empresas e em especial as chamadas intensivas em conhecimento. O objetivo geral do trabalho é contribuir para o estabelecimento do debate sobre knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) ou serviços empresariais intensivos em conhecimento (SEIC) no Brasil. Trata-se de enquadrar a discussão da literatura internacional em uma economia periférica e avaliar sua pertinência. A hipótese é que este grupo de atividades se torna necessário para o desenvolvimento dos países nesta nova era do capitalismo, especialmente por sua atuação na difusão de conhecimento e sua participação positiva em processos de inovação. Neste sentido, os propósitos do texto são: 1) fazer uma revisão da literatura sobre KIBS; 2) definir os KIBS no Brasil em comparação com os outros setores da economia, mostrando sua participação significativa em termos de geração de receita, sua dinâmica de crescimento acima da média nos últimos anos e sua capacidade de empregar mão-de-obra de mais alta qualificação; 3) investigar em que medida este grupo é importante na difusão de conhecimento e em processos de inovação; 4) discutir a concentração destas atividades em áreas metropolitanas. Pelo fato de atuarem como difusores de conhecimento e pelo seu enredamento vasto na cadeia produtiva, os KIBS podem representar uma tendência analítica promissora, especialmente em um momento em que atores públicos têm pensado políticas de desenvolvimento de escopo transversal, nas quais a inovação é elemento central. / The changes in capitalism in the last thirty years created conditions to service industries growth, especially those ones related to knowledge-intensive activities. The main objective of this master thesis is to contribute to build a knowledge-intensive business services debate in Brazil. It means that this thesis tries to bring an important debate from the developed countries academia to a developing country in order to analyze if it could be applied in other context. The hypothesis is that KIBS are necessary to increase economic development in Brazil in the new era of capitalism, also known as knowledge-based economy or informational society. The relevance of these activities is due to their role as sources, carriers and diffusers of knowledge that can generate externalities to innovation processes. The aims of this text are: 1) make a literature review of KIBS debate; 2) define KIBS in Brazil comparing to the rest of service sector, showing how important they are in terms of growth in the last years, high value added generation, and qualified labor force employment; 3) investigate how these industries are important to knowledge diffusion and to innovation processes; 4) discuss the reasons why KIBS are agglomerated in metropolitan regions. Once KIBS are known as sources, carriers and diffusers of knowledge and as they are connected to many of others activities, I assume that they can be an interesting and promising approach. This becomes even more important nowadays, in a context in which innovation takes place as a central issue of the development policies debate.

<p><strong><p>Abstract</p><p>Attitudes towards the reference situation and the meetings between library users and librarians have become the subject of much debate in the library setting today. The aim of this two years master´s thesis has been to examine six librarian’s attitudes and apprehensions concerning the interactions between the librarian and the users in the library setting. We were also interested in knowing how a library can work to become more service oriented and customer centred. We conducted six interviews with librarians located at three different libraries in Sweden. We used three theories to explain our aim. These are Jürgen Habermas theory of social communication, theory about professions and Christian Grönroos theory of Service Management.</p><p>We found that our informants both see the physical meeting with the library and the social exchanges with the librarians as important parts of the user’s experience of the library.</p><p>The three libraries that we visited work in different ways to improve their customer service. One library has developed a policy for concrete ways to improve the social exchange with the library user. Another library is working with a policy and the third library handle attitude questions more implicit in the daily work and in a specialised group. We could see that the informants who worked at the library which had a policy and an under-standing of the importance of customer service as a central part of the organisation regarded those questions as being very important. Some informants could not see how customer service could get improved in another way than just discussing these issues in groups, meetings or in connection to seminars.</p><p>The changing of attitudes of members of the staff can be complicated however because it, at some level, is about individual changes. We believe that a person has to be motivated to make these changes. To improve this motivation the organisation has to create opportunities for the staff to critically reflect upon their working situa-tion. In that way we believe that the staff can experience security and motivation to do a good job which then has a positive impact on the customer service provided. The acknowledgement of the importance of customer service within an organization has to engage everybody and the whole organisation at all its levels.</p><p>We think that customer service in the library setting will become more important in the future as a response to the technical evolution and all the automated elements in our society. The importance of actual meetings in-crease as our society increasingly communicates via digital means.</p></strong></p>

University of Macau / Faculty of Business Administration / Department of Management and Marketing

University of Macau / Faculty of Business Administration / Department of Management and Marketing

The dissertation has three main chapters on product quality innovation. First, we compare innovation effort and social welfare between monopoly, duopoly, and the social planner in a dynamic model with quality dependent on a continuous know-how stock. The technology frontier--the largest reachable know-how socks--does not always positively depend on competitiveness, i.e. a duopoly may technologically surpass the social planner. However, social welfare is always positively tied to competitiveness. Second, with a general equilibrium model, we derive a relative price function expressing productivity and quality effects, and develop a method for inferring relative quality changes. An application to services versus goods of the US from 1946-2006 provides evidence on aggregate quality changes and suggests us to incorporate quality variations when explaining relative prices. Third, we build a two-product model where productivity changes lead to reallocations of labor between quantity production and quality innovation. The correlation between relative productivity and relative quality is negative for low-range substitutability and positive for medium-range substitutability between two products. Looking at services versus goods of the US, the correlation is negative and productivity-driven quality can play a significant role in general quality development.

Abstract Attitudes towards the reference situation and the meetings between library users and librarians have become the subject of much debate in the library setting today. The aim of this two years master´s thesis has been to examine six librarian’s attitudes and apprehensions concerning the interactions between the librarian and the users in the library setting. We were also interested in knowing how a library can work to become more service oriented and customer centred. We conducted six interviews with librarians located at three different libraries in Sweden. We used three theories to explain our aim. These are Jürgen Habermas theory of social communication, theory about professions and Christian Grönroos theory of Service Management. We found that our informants both see the physical meeting with the library and the social exchanges with the librarians as important parts of the user’s experience of the library. The three libraries that we visited work in different ways to improve their customer service. One library has developed a policy for concrete ways to improve the social exchange with the library user. Another library is working with a policy and the third library handle attitude questions more implicit in the daily work and in a specialised group. We could see that the informants who worked at the library which had a policy and an under-standing of the importance of customer service as a central part of the organisation regarded those questions as being very important. Some informants could not see how customer service could get improved in another way than just discussing these issues in groups, meetings or in connection to seminars. The changing of attitudes of members of the staff can be complicated however because it, at some level, is about individual changes. We believe that a person has to be motivated to make these changes. To improve this motivation the organisation has to create opportunities for the staff to critically reflect upon their working situa-tion. In that way we believe that the staff can experience security and motivation to do a good job which then has a positive impact on the customer service provided. The acknowledgement of the importance of customer service within an organization has to engage everybody and the whole organisation at all its levels. We think that customer service in the library setting will become more important in the future as a response to the technical evolution and all the automated elements in our society. The importance of actual meetings in-crease as our society increasingly communicates via digital means.

El treball desenvolupat en aquesta tesi consisteix en l'adaptació a la llengua catalana d'un model de mesura de la qualitat en el sector serveis, el model servqual, i la seva contrastació a través d'una aplicació empírica al sector de les entitats financeres de les comarques gironines. El primers capítols del treball constitueixen un bloc introductori al tema principal de la tesi, la mesura de la qualitat en el sector serveis, i indiquen la necessitat i la conveniència d'obtenir una mesura fiable de la qualitat per tal d'aconseguir un avantatge competitiu sostenible tant en el mercat nacional com en el mercat internacional actual. El desenvolupament metodològic de la tesi es realitza en dues vessants diferents, per una banda es procedeix a l'adaptació a la llengua catalana de l'instrument de mesura que es vol contrastar, i per l'altra es descriu, es discuteix i s'aplica la metodologia estadística que permet descobrir variables latents, és a dir, constructes no observables directament, a través de l'estudi de la covariació de les variables observables o indicadors adequats. L'objectiu general que es vol aconseguir és l'avaluació de la qualitat percebuda del servei que ofereixen les entitats financeres de la província de Girona. Els objectius específics que es planteja el treball, a part de la obtenció de l'instrument adaptat a la llengua catalana per a la mesura de la qualitat percebuda en el sector de les entitats financeres, són: a) L'estudi de la validesa i de la fiabilitat de l'instrument, així com l'anàlisi de l'estabilitat de les dimensions inherents al model i que porten a la formació del constructe qualitat percebuda. b) L'anàlisi de la relació entre les percepcions i les expectatives com a manera d'avaluar la qualitat percebuda. c) La discriminació deis constructes qualitat, qualitat percebuda i satisfacció i les possibles relacions existents entre ells. d) L'estudi del poder predictiu del constructe qualitat percebuda sobre el comportament futur dels clients. e) L'impacte que tenen les característiques socioeconòmiqes deis clients, així com la distinció entre tipus d'entitat (caixes i bancs), en l'avaluació de la qualitat percebuda. L'elecció del sector empíric d'aplicació del treball no ha estat gratuïta i obeeix a dos motius principals. En primer lloc, i a diferència d'altres treballs empírics d'aplicació de l''escala servqual, no es vol fer l' estudi sobre una mostra de conveniència o sobre una llista de clients d'una determinada entitat sinó que planteja l'estudi sobre una mostra aleatòria geogràfica presa sobre el total poblacional censat a les comarques gironines. L' altra motiu l'imposa la mateixa metodologia al exigir que el client ha d'haver pogut escollir lliurament l'entitat que avalua i per tant que el seu judici sobre l'entitat no ha estat condicionat a priori. La mostra s'ha seleccionat realitzant mostreig aleatori simple proporcional a la mesura de l'hàbitat prèvia estratificació dels municipis segons tinguin mida censal inferior als 2.000 habitants, entre 2.000 i 10.000 habitants, entre 10.000 i 50.000 habitants i superior als 50.000 habitants. El total de la mostra de la primera fase (500 persones), s'ha administrat mitjançant entrevista personal per enquestadors entrenats prèviament. El nivell de resposta útil consta de 430 qüestionaris. La mostra utilitzada en la segona fase consta de 150 persones, seleccionades aleatòriament entre les que havien donar resposta valida en la primera fase i l'administració es va fer per correu. Les anàlisis exploradores realitzades mostren la poca estabilitat de les dimensions del model encara que l'escala de les percepcions recull un percentatge de variabilitat superior a l'escala servqual i proporciona valors superiors per l'alfa de Cronbach. Les anàlisis confirmatòries efectuades per a contrastar l'existència de les cinc dimensions del model (tangible, fiabilitat, interès, seguretat i empatia), com a variables latents associades als seus corresponents models de mesura. ens permeten rebutjar-les globalment encara que observem ajustos menys dolents per al' escala de les percepcions que per a l'escala servqual. L'anàlisi en profunditat del model ens porta a la conclusió que els aspectes més significatius en l'avaluació de qualitat són els corresponents a aspectes de seguretat, fiabilitat i interès i que els percentatges de variabilitat explicada són superiors en tots els casos per a l' escala de les percepcions que per al' escala servqual. Atès que l' anàlisi de la bateria servqual indica que les percepcions dels clients només superen les seves expectatives en tres dels ítems corresponents a la dimensió tangible, que les valoracions de qualitat i de satisfacció global són molt bones i que la comparació de les puntuacions mitjanes a les expectatives amb puntuacions mitjanes d'importància dels diferents aspectes avaluats indiquen criteris semblants, concloem que l'escala de les percepcions té un poder explicatiu superior i que la interpretació de l'escala servqual s'ha de contextualitzar en el sentit que no es poden interpretar de la mateixa manera els gaps amb mateixa puntuació, sinó que la diferencia entre percepcions i expectatives és més important si la puntuació donada a les expectatives és més alta. Les anàlisis efectuades a través de proves Anova i interpretades a través d'anàlisis de classificació múltiple indiquen que els aspectes socioeconòmics que més incideixen en les valoracions de qualitat són els que fan referència a la mida de l'hàbitat i al nivell d'estudis. Veiem el paral·lelisme en l'explicació de les dues escales, percepcions i servqual, però sempre a favor de l'escala de les percepcions pel que fa a significativitat i a percentatge de variabilitat explicada. El model estructural saturat entre els constructes que mesuren de manera global la qualitat, les percepcions de qualitat i la satisfacció global, ens permet rebutjar la hipòtesis que es tracta de mesures de tres constructes iguals i ens permet establir relacions entre ells. El modelat amb equacions estructurals de dos models equivalents excepte pel que fa a la direccionalitat entre qualitat i satisfacció entre les percepcions, la qualitat, la satisfacció i el comportament futur del client, ens porta a ajustos completament equivalents. De la mateixa manera, el planteig de models equivalents per discernir quin dels dos constructes, qualitat o satisfacció, és el que causa un efecte directe sobre el comportament futur del client ens porta també a ajustos equivalents. Les principals conclusions del treball són que les percepcions de qualitat dels clients de les entitats financeres de les comarques gironines són molt bones i que els aspectes més importants per a la valoració de la qualitat són els que fan referència a seguretat, fiabilitat i interès. Els aspectes que fan referència a les dimensions tangibles i d'empatia són molt poc significatius estadísticament. Destaca el fet que l'escala de les percepcions té un poder predictiu més alt a nivell individual que l'escala servqual analitzada i que l'escala de les expectatives permet relativitzar la importància de les conclusions extretes a través de l'escala de les percepcions. S'ha comprovat la validació de criteri de l'instrument a través de la predicció del comportament futur del client en l'ajust estructural realitzat i la fiabilitat de l'instrument s'ha comprovat a través de la prova test-retest efectuada entre les dues fases del treball empíric sobre la mateixa mostra de persones en dos moments de temps. Qualitat i satisfacció són la mesura de dos constructes diferents entre els que no hem pogut decidir el sentit de causalitat. El poder predictiu del constructe qualitat percebuda sobre el comportament futur dels clients es mesura a través d'un efecte indirecte a través de les variables de qualitat i de satisfacció global i és significatiu. Les variables socioeconòmiques són importants per entendre millor el comportament dels diferents sectors de mercat així com dels dos tipus d'entitat avaluades (bancs i caixes). L' escala servqual és un esquelet vàlid per a la mesura de la qualitat dels serveis però cal un treball qualitatiu previ a la seva implantació en un sector concret per recollir una part més gran de la variabilitat de les respostes i la seva força està en la utilització repetida al llarg del temps per captar canvis tant en les expectatives com en les percepcions de qualitat dels clients. / During the last years the attainment of quality has become a goal of business environment and, moreover, quality has been proven to be an important tool in the obtaining of sustainable competitive advantages. The measurement and the control of quality in services have a distinctive feature in the sense that focus is put on perceived quality. In services, intangibility is a fact and firms have to strengthen in customers and in the way in which customers form and update their perceptions about quality. In this thesis we adapt the servqual model to the Catalan language in order to analyse customers of financial institutions services in the area of Girona, Spain. A population study is realised. A distinctive feature of our analysis with respect to the majority of previous ones is that ours is a population study. That is to say, instead of directly address on customers of a firm we randomly sampled the population of the province of Girona, Spain. In particular, first stratified random sampling and then simple random sampling within each stratum are applied. Total population reported by the last census (1995 local elections) was N= 421487. The stratum considered were for towns below 2000 inhabitants, between 200 l and 10000 inhabitants and between 10001 and 50000 inhabitants.The questionnaires were individually administered during a face-to-face interview in the home of the individuals of the sample for previously entrained interviewers.Expectatives are specifically analysed. Our aim is to compare such expectatives with perceptions about services. Using the modified servqual methodology, the dimensions of quality are analysed using factor analysis, relative weights for each one of these dimensions and a causal model relating perceived quality, experienced satisfaction, global quality and future intentions of customers about the firm is estimated.The adaptation of the model to the reality is discussed and some proposals about the sampled sector (financial institutions) and the analysed area (the province of Girona) are commented.In addition, anova was used to determine if there were differences among the various sociodemographic categories in regard to each service quality item and each service quality dimension. Posterior MCA were realised to test the overall effect of the different sociodemographic categories on each dimension of service quality.